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Careerism and the Ethics of Autonomy: A Theological Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

James A. Donahue
James A. Donahue*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
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Abstract

This essay analyzes the moral and theological significance of the preoccupation of today's college students with careers and preprofessional training and illustrates how the theology component of the undergraduate curriculum can respond to the moral dilemmas presented by careerism. It contends that careerism is but a symptom of a more fundamental malaise of the social ethos and that by engaging in a critical inquiry into the moral roots of the ethos of liberalism—the ethos that gives rise to careerism—students can be challenged to investigate their own personal career choices in the context of the society in which they live. This can be done successfully only if analytic categories are available that provide a “bridge” between the personal experience of the students and the social experience of the larger society. The Ethics component of the Theology curriculum can provide these categories of analysis. Ethos, narrative, character, and vocation—terms integral to the discourse of Christian Ethics—provide helpful ways of structuring this analysis in the classroom.

Type
Creative Teaching
Information
Horizons , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Fall 1988 , pp. 316 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1988

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References

1 While Bloom's book has received most of the public attention on this issue, other works that support Bloom's major thesis about the decline of academic standards in higher education and the consequent trivialization of the curriculum include Boyer, Ernest L., College: The Undergraduate Experience in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1987)Google Scholar, and Hirsch, E. D., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1987).Google Scholar

2 The works of Bellah, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar, and MacIntyre, , After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981)Google Scholar have generated the greatest public discussion on the issue of the moral relationship between the individual and the community. There are however, bodies of literature in many related disciplines that speak to the same central concerns that these works do. Among these include Stout, Jeffrey, The Flight From Authority: Religion, Morality and the Quest for Autonomy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981);Google ScholarGutman, Amy, Liberal Equality (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1981);Google ScholarSandel, Michael J., Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1982);Google ScholarHauerwas, Stanley, A Community of Character (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981);Google ScholarNeuhaus, Richard John, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1984).Google Scholar

3 My understanding of the nature of Christian ethics is informed in large measure by the work of Charles McCoy. See his When Gods Change: Hope for Theology (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1980).Google Scholar While I am indebted to McCoy's insights, my own appropriation of his ideas entails a more explicit development of the distinctively theological dimensions of human action.

4 The Hoyo, Georgetown University Student Newspaper, May 22, 1987.

5 A recent survey of degrees granted in 1987 by Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States indicates that business and management was the field of study in which most degrees were granted (10,385). Social sciences (3,527) and law (3,436) were the second and third most popular degrees. These summaries are reported in Higher Education Report, distributed monthly by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities 11/4, January 1988, p. 12.Google Scholar

6 The figures on the amount of this debt vary greatly depending on the type of institution one is analyzing. Not only does debt affect the choices of undergraduates about their future, but in the professional schools, where the amount of debt is significantly higher, there is even more acute pressure to make career and job choices based on their ability to provide economic viability sufficient to erase existing debt. For insightful studies of the amount of debt burden accumulated by college students in recent years, see Hansen, Janet, “Student Loans: Are They Overburdening a Generation?” (Washington, DC: The College Board, 1987)Google Scholar, and “The National Post-Secondary Student Aid Study: Preliminary Report,” (Washington, DC: The United States Department of Education, 1987).Google Scholar

7 This claim is challenged by some analysts of the politics and religion of the new right. My contention here is that the lack of concern for developing criteria of public verifiability used to support the moral and theological claims of the new right leads to a moral view in which individuals come to believe that no warrants outside of one's own direct religious or moral experience need to be given in support of the legitimacy of one's positions. For excellent overviews of the relationship of religion and politics in the new right, see Hunter, James Davison, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987);Google ScholarReichley, A. James, Religion in American Public Life (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1985);Google Scholar and Wald, Kenneth D., Religion and Politics in the United States (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987).Google Scholar For clarification on this point I am indebted to my colleague, Professor Elizabeth McKeown of Georgetown University.

8 There is a relative paucity of material in the discipline of Christian ethics that addresses the moral issues attendant to the institution of the family in contemporary society. For analysis from other disciplines of the family see, Peter, and Berger, Brigitte, The War Over the Family: Capturing the Middle Ground (New York: Anchor Books, 1983)Google Scholar, Howard, Ronald L., A Social History of American Family Sociology, 1865-1945 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981)Google Scholar, and Lasch, Christopher, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York: Basic Books, 1977).Google Scholar

9 For an interesting overview of the issues of authority in the Roman Catholic tradition, see Sanks, T. Howland, Authority in the Church: A Study in Changing Paradigms (Missoula, MT: Scholars' Press, 1974).Google Scholar

10 For a summary of the major theological issues at stake in the relativism and objectivism controversy, see Ommen, Thomas B., “Relativism, Objectivism, and Theology,” Horizons 13/2 (Fall 1986), 291–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 The works cited in note 2 indicate the complexity of the precise relationship between the individual and the community in contemporary liberalism. These complexities are not fully conscious or the object of sufficient reflection for most undergraduate students. As developmental theorists like Kohlberg, Piaget, and Erikson suggest moreover, adolescents and young adults of college age are not at a point in their lives to be able to differentiate fully the psychological complexities of the liberal ethos except perhaps in a notional way. Consequently, their predominant moral frame of reference tends to have a dichotomized self-other quality.

12 The writings of Gibson Winter are vastly overlooked in the contemporary discussion of methodology in social ethics. His classic work, Elements for a Social Ethic (New York: Macmillan, 1966)Google Scholar offers a superb treatment of the interrelationship between ethics and social theory. Its strength lies in its depth of understanding of both theological and philosophical ethics as well as his expert insight into the social sciences. For Winter's most recent work in ethics see, Liberating Creation (New York: Crossroads, 1981).Google Scholar

13 These represent the most widely known works that address the philosophical underpinnings of the liberal ethos. They also are those that have sparked the sharpest debate within academic cicles. Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971);Google ScholarMacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981);Google ScholarBellah, Robert, et al., Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985);Google ScholarStout, Jeffrey, The Flight From Authority: Religion, Morality, and the Quest for Autonomy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).Google Scholar

14 Rawls, , A Theory of Justice, p. 11.Google Scholar

15 MacIntyre, , After Virtue, p. 2.Google Scholar

16 Bellah, , Habits of the Heart, p. 50.Google Scholar

17 Stout, , The Flight From Authority, p. 2.Google Scholar

18 For a helpful assessment of the predominant works in liberalism, see the Spring/Summer 1986 issue of Soundings (69/2). The focus of the issue is a symposium on Habits of the Heart, and presents a wide-ranging analysis from different disciplines on the Bellah (et al.) thesis. The essay by Jeffrey Stout, “Liberal Society and the Language of Morals,” is a particularly insightful piece that questions the accuracy of Bellah's main thesis.

19 To understand careerism fully it is important that the developmental process of the adolescent and college age young man and woman be sufficiently understood. It is this process that will be the basis for interpreting students' responses to different social and cultural situations. An excellent in-depth study of this developmental process which draws heavily on the work in faith development of James Fowler can be found in Parks, Sharon, The Critical Years: The Young Adult Search for a Faith to Live By (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986).Google Scholar

20 I have found the work of Erik Erikson to be the most helpful in terms of understanding the patterns of behavior of college age students. See his “Eight Ages of Man,” in Childhood and Society (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1968).Google Scholar For an excellent summary and interpretation of Erikson's stages, see Fowler, James, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 20–30.Google Scholar

21 For treatments of the concept of community in the New Testament, see Lohfink, Gerhard, Jesus and Community (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982)Google Scholar, and Neyrey, Jerome H. S.J., , Christ is Community (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1985).Google Scholar

22 An insightful analysis of the theological and ethical meaning of the concept of agape is found in Outka, Gene, Agape (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1972).Google Scholar The relationship between justice and love is analyzed with great insight in Neibuhr, Reinhold, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932).Google Scholar

23 For a most helpful analysis of some of the important connections between Christian Ethics and liberal theory, particularly with regard to the issues of human rights and community, see Werpehowski, William, “Political Liberalism and Christian Ethics: A Review Discussion,” in The Thomist 48/1 (January 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 In general, the idea of using these “points of breakdown” as the departure point for theological and ethical reflection is an effective pedagogical tool. This approach assumes that there is an intrinsic interest for students in exploring those aspects of their lives that are most in need of attention. This assumption, of course, can be challenged.

25 Richard McBrien makes the point that one of the distinctive features of the transcendental Thomism of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan is their characterization of human existence as being “constituted by meaning,” and that we as humans are “meaning-making” creatures. See his, Catholicism (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1980), pp. 128–33.Google Scholar

26 While issues of method and substance are separated for purposes of distinguishing them from one another, in reality they are difficult to separate. There will usually be a convergence of the two and any careful analysis must indicate clearly how they intersect with one another.

27 Winter, , Elements for a Social Ethic, p. 218.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., p. 219.

29 Ibid., p. 219.

30 The use of “story” in theology and ethics is receiving significant attention in contemporary theological circles and journals. The work of Stanley Hauerwas is perhaps the best known among contemporary Christian theologians. See his Character and the Christian Life (San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1975)Google Scholar, and A Community of Character (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).Google Scholar For a substantive critique of narrative theology from a sympathetic perspective, see Goldberg, Michael, Narrative and Theology (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1981).Google Scholar

31 The discussion of the common good is intrinsic to an analysis of liberalism. My own perspective on the nature of the common good derives primarily from its usage in the works of Murray, John Courtney S.J., See his We Hold These Truths (Kansas City, KS: Sheed and Ward, 1960).Google Scholar For an insightful analysis of the work of Murray and its significance for Catholic Social Ethics, consult Hooper, J. Leon S.J., , The Ethics of Discourse (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

32 The concept of character in contemporary theological ethics is treated as integral to the narrative structure of experience in theology. It is difficult to separate the two in that moral character is shaped by story and any adequate analysis of one of these components necessitates an investigation of the interrelationship between the two. The work of Hauerwas serves as a good illustration of this.

33 For a superb set of essays that treat the concept of vocation in relationship to the professions, see the proceedings of the Annual Theology Institute of Villanova University 1986 in The Professions in Ethical Context: Vocations to Justice and Love, Eigo, Francis A. O.S.A., , ed. (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1986).Google Scholar In this volume the essay by William Werpehowski, “The Professions: Vocations to Justice and Love,” provides a most helpful foundational understanding of the concept of vocation.